FYI

Anna Sergi, a lecturer in criminology at the University of Essex who specialises in mafia relationships, confirmed Albanians and the southern Italian crime group have joined forces. “Whenever the 'Ndrangheta is shipping things over, they work a lot with the Albanians,” she said.Jan 13, 2019

A few months ago a big investigation showed that the Calabrians worked with an Albanian-speaking group operating in Ecuador and across Europe.

Ecuador has been in the news often lately, the amount of cocaine seized in Europe is unbelievable. In August 2023, in Ecuador, candidate Fernando Villavicencio was killed in the street in Quito, on the eve of early general elections. Ecuador is going through what Colombia went through in the '80s, and Mexico went through in the '90s.

Albanians and Southern Italians in general are tight. In any Italian hangout in any Southern Italian diaspora community you'll always find more than a few Albanians hanging around as well.

criminally speaking are very different anyway, italians have big organizations, hierarchical with ranks and ceremonies, albanians clan are more fragmented and they are more criminal enterprises than traditional organized crime as even FBI said

I had no idea but Ecuador's currency is the United States dollar.

The term Albanian Mafia ( Albanian : Mafia Shqiptare ) is used for criminal organizations from Albania or composed of ethnic Albanians .

The Albanian Mafia is especially visible in the United States and the European Union. The Albanian mafia has had a strong presence in the Netherlands for several years now. They are particularly prominent in the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam . [1] [2] The Albanian mafia is mainly engaged in drug trafficking, people smuggling and arms smuggling, with links to the Cosa Nostra , the Ndrangheta and the Camorra .

Albanian organized crime today has become a point of reference for all criminal activities. Everything goes through the Albanians. The road to drugs and guns and people, including illegal immigrants destined for Europe, are in Albanian hands.

— Cataldo Motta, Italian police

"The Albanian criminals were special from the start," said Francesca Marcelli, an organized crime investigator for the Italian government. "When they started in 1993, they were very different from other immigrants. They have a strong motivation and are very violent."


“The ethnic Albanian mafia is very powerful and extremely violent,” said Kim Kliver, chief organized crime investigator for the Danish National Police. "If you compare them to the Italian mafia, the Albanians are stronger and not afraid to kill."


Albanian organized crime has its roots in a traditional system based, among other things, on fis ( consanguinity ). From about the 15th century the rules ( Kanun ) of Lekë Dukagjini were used . The Kanun is a collection of traditional Albanian rules that is certainly not specifically intended for the mafia. One of the most important rules is besa , which means that one may take someone on their word of honor. [3]

Stronger and not afraid to kill? I'm willing to bet that if we compared the two, Italian organized crime has killed more people in the upperworld - politicians, judges, police, military personnel, priests, businessmen, etc - than Albanians throughout their history.

I agree every time a new group comes up LE like to say how powerful, dangerous and violent they are lol.

The Corleonesi alone were way more violent.

i think also in the underworld, the italian mafia groups killed about 10.000 people from the 1980s to today, i doubt albanian clans killed so much

Different times, try something like that today and u wont last a year. All the weed in Balkans comes from Kosovo, heroin too. When it comes to cocaine , there are a few big players both in Serbia and Albania and they all have connections to Italians that allows them to buy a lot of cocaine for a relatively cheap price

That's very true. There are plenty of Albanians who say that Albania doesn't really have a "Mafia", but that Albanian criminal organizations are more like gangs. They can be very professional and of course violent when crossed - even though for all the talks about how dangerous they are they prefer to operate low-key - but there isn't a single Albanian criminal organization in existence that's as huge as any prominent Camorra, Ndrangheta or Mafia clan. That's just the way it is.

As for everything you read about any new breed of organized crime in the newspapers...you have to take it with a big grain of salt. A ton of articles are terribly researched and the words of so-called "investigators" get taken out of context to make it all sound more spectacular than it really is.

I've hung around many places throughout the years and I've heard many different stories. I've come across plenty of different types of organized crime groups. What is said in the papers usually doesn't even scratch the surface of what's going on. Plenty of groups that have allegedly "taken over" this trade or that trade in reality don't have as big of a market share as the papers make it out to be. And plenty of groups that are allegedly "gone" are still very much active and still have plenty of stakes in certain trades.

And one thing I can tell for sure is that any kind of noteworthy criminal organization that makes plenty of money is terrifying when crossed. You can't say one is more dangerous or "bigger" than the other because you wouldn't like to be on the wrong side of any of them.

True TKJ, in particular the British tabloids tend to sensationalize the Albanian gangsters.

'Ndrangheta, found in Cropalati the body of Carmine Morello - LIVE
The forty-nine year old had disappeared into thin air last August 9, the body was in an advanced state of decomposition and it is certainly a homicide

https://www.cosenzachannel.it/2023/...-il-corpo-senza-vita-di-carmine-morello/

Morello's former boss Nicola Acri alias "Eyes of ice ” became a collaborator of justice in the early summer of 2021.
Morello was considered one of the "orphans".

ORGANIZED CRIME

STORY OF "RUBBER HAND", THE BOSS WHO WANTED TO BECOME THE HEAD OF THE 'NDRANGHETA



04/09/2023 In the biography of Nicolino Grande Aracri by Antonio Anastasi a glimpse of the Calabrian clan system and the x-ray of their devastating power

You can read in one breath "The story of the rubber hand" by Antonio Anastasi, journalist of the Southern newspaper and collaborator of "Famiglia Cristiana". It deals with the rise and fall of Nicolino Grande Aracri, the ruthless boss of Cutro who had challenged the 'Ndrangheta of Reggio. A "Shakespearean" story set between Emilia and the West, where the West is the Calabria of "bandits", in Pasolini's sense of the term, or of the excluded, of the victims of a "social ban" which sees so many people deprived of their most basic civil rights.
A determined leader Nicolino, known as the "rubber hand", but also intelligent, visionary, enterprising, capable of challenging the centuries-old equilibrium of the 'Ndrangheta (the one that gathered around the old sanctuary of Polsi, which has now become a symbol of the redemption of civil society) to projecting himself into the new financial and economic markets of globalization. The book reconstructs the boss's relationships with entrepreneurs (capable of "invoicing" millions and millions of euros of dirty money out of thin air in order to recycle it for the use of his clan), Freemasons, politicians of the "third level" up to the attempt of collaboration with the justice in order to save his family from revenge.

Millennial traditions, such as the "colonization" of the ruthless Cutrese mafia of the rich Emilia, are mixed with sophisticated recycling systems linked to national and international markets. From the latest trials "it emerges that even the biggest Emilian industrialists, despite solid relationships with red cooperatives and local institutions, went hand in hand with the reference entrepreneurs of a criminal organization that continues to have huge capitals that are tempting even in the north" , writes Anastasi. The author, page after page, describes the social and criminal context in which the life of "rubber hand" takes place to the point of making it a paradigm of a humanity that dies hard, that of a "silent, chameleonic and increasingly delocalized. Until the surprise epilogue of this story: a story that will see the prosecutor of Catanzaro Nicola Gratteri as protagonist, capable of thwarting an attempt by the boss to connect to the ganglia of justice to save himself. This story, full of cool scenes, told like a novel, even if it is true story, as Antonio Nicaso writes in the preface «must be known to understand how much the legitimacy of the ruling classes was decisive for the affirmation of a group of violent people who alone they would never, ever have acquired so much power as to condition the lives and hopes of hundreds of thousands of people».

'Ndrangheta: fugitive arrested in Germany. He would be affiliated with the Scofano-Martella-La Rosa clan
05 September 2023
The Carabinieri of Venice with the help of the German police arrested the 44-year-old Valerio Salvatore Crivello in Keitum (Germany), allegedly linked to the 'Ndrangheta Scofano-Martella-La Rosa clan, wanted since November 2020, when he escaped the execution order for imprisonment issued by the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Catanzaro Court of Appeal following the final sentence to life imprisonment, with daytime isolation for two months. Crivello had been convicted of the murder aggravated by the mafia method of Pietro Serpa, committed on May 27, 2003 in Paola. At the time Crivello had managed to escape the arrest warrant by escaping from his parents' home in Scorzè (Venice), where he had been placed under house arrest with an electronic bracelet, pending the final sentence. Hence a manhunt that lasted almost three years,

Most notorious episode in this investigation was lupara bianca of Maria Chindamo, she disappeared from her farm in Calabria in Italy in May 2016.

An Italian mother who vanished seven years ago was murdered and her body fed to pigs, police revealed today.

Maria Chindamo, 42, a mother of three, disappeared from her farm after she refused offers to buy her land made by the mafia.

It has now emerged that her neighbour and mobster, Salvatore Ascone, 57, allegedly killed Chindamo for rejecting offers to buy the land she had inherited from her late husband, who committed suicide, according to anti-mafia police.


Italy arrests 81 people over suspected links with mafia group
Authorities say alleged crimes committed by arrested people include extortion, corruption, arms and drug trafficking, violent threats, homicide
Giovanni Legorano |
07.09.2023 - Update : 07.09.2023
Italy arrests 81 people over suspected links with mafia group

ROME Italy on Thursday arrested 81 people over their alleged links to mafia group ‘Ndrangheta and a variety of crimes.

The list of alleged crimes committed by the people included extortion, corruption, arms and drug trafficking, violent threats, and homicide.

The arrests were ordered by Judge Nicola Gratteri, the head of the prosecutors’ office in Catanzaro and anti-mafia prosecutor. Carabinieri police said that 29 of these people were put in jail, while the remaining 52 were placed under house arrest.

The operation is the result of an investigation which last May led to the arrest of 61 people accused of similar crimes.

There is a total of 170 people under investigation in this probe, the police said.

The investigation allowed prosecutors to understand criminal dynamics and the connections between criminals and entrepreneurs in the Calabrian area of Vibo Valentia.

In particular, the prosecutors are accusing the arrested people of extorting local businesses in the real estate and tourism sector.

They also accuse some of the arrested people of corrupting local politicians to assign jobs to people close to them in exchange for support at elections.

Among the arrested, there are also lawyers who have allegedly defrauded local authorities to illicitly obtain public funds destined to finance the reception and care of migrants.

Op. 'Ndrangheta: logistics base dismantled in the Netherlands, drug trafficker arrested
07 September 2023

A Belgian citizen of Italian origin, Pietro Spitale , was arrested in Heerlen, Holland, on the border with Belgium, domiciled abroad for years, believed to be associated with a criminal organization dedicated to drug trafficking and recipient of a detention order issued by the Belgian judicial authority. The arrest is part of the coordination activities of the Turin Public Prosecutor's Office, in concert with foreign prosecutors, in the fight against the 'Ndrangheta. The investigation in question, called "Nudols", which constitutes an offshoot of the "Platinum dia" operation, which already in 2021 had led to the disintegration of a criminal group headed by families from San Luca, in the province of Reggio Calabria, and to the arrest of 33 people, made it possible to verify and document how the criminal organization investigated, among other things, had established an important logistical base in northern Europe between Belgium and the Dutch town of Heerlen, where large quantities of cocaine from South America were stored and processed together with large sums of money and weapons. The investigative activity aimed at targeted research, the result of a meticulous analysis of the encrypted chats of the 'Sky etc' phones, conducted by the Italian Dia investigators and the consequent and coordinated observation carried out by the Dutch police, gave a positive result. During the operations, which was also witnessed by the Dutch magistrate, on the precise indication of the Italian investigators, the special forces, after having cleared the area, began a meticulous search activity also with the use of excavators, finding, buried in the appurtenant garden to the house and in an area used as a chicken coop, previously covered with a concrete pour, four barrels made waterproof so that they would not undergo alterations caused by humidity. Cutting substance and equipment for packaging blocks of narcotics were found inside one of the drums. Accounting documents relating to the criminal organization as well as Italian and Belgian identity documents were also found in the house, with photographs of the arrested person affixed, but registered to other people.

The "famous" names
Among those arrested, in addition to top figures of the Vibo 'Ndrangheta such as Salvatore Morelli (already detained), the lawyer Francesco Sabatino (already a candidate for mayor of Vibo in the 2015 municipal elections) ends up in prison. The lawyer Azzurra Pelaggi (already involved in the first Maestrale operation) is under house arrest; Cesare Pasqua , former medical director of the ASP of Vibo and Andrea Niglia , former mayor of the Municipality of Briatico and former president of the Province of Vibo. Many of the names involved in today's blitz were also included in the Maestrale 1 suspect list a few months ago. The activity, conventionally called "Maestrale-Carthago", constitutes in fact the natural continuation of the first tranche of the operation, carried out last May 10th, which made it possible to dismantle the associations of the 'ndrangheta of Mileto and Zungri, with the 'ndrine of Briatico and Cessaniti , also hitting the structures of "command and control" and the "military and business wing" of the respective organizations, whose representatives were already detained for another reason and therefore not affected by the detention order.

All names
In jail:

Giuseppe Antonio Accorinti known as Peppone alias "Scimusca" (Zungri, 27.03; 1959);
Salvatore Ascone (Limbadi, 11.09.1966);
Francesco Barbieri (Cessaniti, 02.21.1965);
Giuseppe Barbieri (Tropea, 04.22.1992);
Michelangelo Barbieri (Vibo Valentia, 8.10.1993);
Fortunato Bartone (Mileto, 13.12.1973);
Pietro Giuseppe Bellocco (Gioia tauro, 4.8.1983);
Domenico Cicchello (Vibo Valentia, 5.12.1972);
Nicola Fusca (Vibo Valentia, 13.3.1972);
Ottavio Galati (Miletus, 01.21.1968);
Salvatore Galati (Mileto, 25.11.1955);
Domenico Iannello (Vibo Valentia, 29.4.1977);
Luigi Mancuso (Limbadi, 16.3.1954);
Clemente Mazzeo (Vibo Valentia, 10.3.1968);
Michele Silvano Mazzeo (Seregno, 8.2.1971);
Giuseppe Mazzitelli (Tropea, 15.4.1990);
Emanuele Melluso (Tropea, 5.7.1985);
Simone Melluso (Tropea, 5.7.85);
Salvatore Palmieri (Mileto, 19.3.1976);
Pasquale Pititto (Mileto, 31.12.1968);
Salvatore Pititto (Mileto, 2.12.1968);
Domenico Polito (Desio, 20.2.1974);
Antonio Prostamo (Vibo Valentia, 27.3.1989);
Francesco Prostamo (Vibo Valentia, 8.5.1985);
Giuseppe Prostamo alias "Ciopane" (Mileto, 12.4.1985);
Giuseppe Prostamo alias "Giubba" (Vibo Valentia, 3.11.1989);
Nazareno Prostamo (Miletus, 31.5.1961);
Francesco Sabatino (Polistena, 25.3.1979);
Rocco Tavella (Vibo Valentia, 17.5.1984).

At home:

Ambrogio Accorinti (Zungri, 29.4.1963);
Rocco Anello (Philadelphia, 3.2.1961);
Tommaso Anello (Francavilla Angitola, 28.5.1964);
Onofrio Barbieri (Vibo Valentia, 10.1.1980);
Francesco Barone (Vibo Valentia, 25.10.1973);
Domenico Bonavota (Vibo Valentia, 1.6.1979);
Filippina Carà (Vibo Valentia, 12.12.1989);
Giuseppe Carà (Dasà, 26.10.1962);
Piero Castagna (Vibo Valentia, 5.10.1978);
Nazareno Cichello (Vibo Valentia, 21.4.1960);
Domenico Cordì (Taurianova, 27.6.1972);
Raffaele Corigliano (Mileto, 8.11.1967);
Raffaele Corigliano (Vibo Valentia, 3.4.2000);
Vincenzo Crudo (Vibo Valentia, 9.2.1992);
Giuseppe D'Andrea (Tropea, 17.9.1977);
Maria Vittoria Errigo (Serra San Bruno, 7.12.1954);
Angelo Familiari (Messina, 4.11.1964);
Antonino Fiorillo (Vibo Valentia, 18.9.1974);
Claudio Fiumara (Francavilla Angitola, 27.2.1966);
Massimo Fortuna (Vibo Valentia, 22.10.1976);
Carlo Gioffrè (Rosarno, 7.5.1965);
Antonio Grillo (San Calogero, 25.9.1970);
Antonino La Bella (Vibo Valentia, 22.9.1980);
Rosario La Rocca (Vibo Valentia, 21.12.1974);
Pasquale La Rosa (Tropea, 14.3.1965);
Giuseppe Mangone alias "Pinu u barberi" (13.2.1955);
Damiano Marrella (Vibo Valentia, 7.10.1976);
Francesco Massara (Mileto, 11.08.1957);
Fausto Melluso (Vibo Valentia, 5.6.1973);
Sandro Melluso (Vibo Valentia, 16.2.1977);
Salvatore Morelli alias "The American" (Vibo Valentia, 10.13.1983);
Andrea Niglia (Tropea, 22.7.1976);
Gregorio Niglia alias "Lollo" (Tropea, 8.4.1983);
Cesare Pasqua (Nicotera, 11.11.1948);
Joan Pelaggi (L'Aquila, 21.4.1977);
Maria Rosa Pesce (Rosarno, 25.8.1953);
Gaetano Moltiero (Melicucco, 29.10.1964);
Fortunato Pontoriero (San Calogero, 19.4.1949);
Giusepppe Preiti known as Pino (Vibo Valentia, 18.1.1975);
Nicola Preiti known as Cola (San Calogero, 31.12.1968);
Antonio Prenesti known as Totò alias "Yo Yò - Mussu stortu" (Nicotera, 20.9.1966);
Antonio Domenico Prestia (Tropea, 15.4.1999);
Antonio Gaetano Prestia known as Tonino (Mileto, 26.12.1964);
Giuseppe Prostamoalias "U russuni - U blond" (Vibo Valentia, 5.8.1970);
Savatore Prostamo alias "U Sasizzu" (Briatico, 6.5.1960);
Ettore Romagnoli (Rome, 3.9.1957);
Marco Startari (Vibo Valentia, 17.8.1989);
Antonio Tripodi (Vibo Valentia, 29.9.1973);
Mattia Giovanni Tripodi (Tropea 14.10.1996);
Leopoldo Giulio Valente (Vibo Valentia, 9.1.1979);
Giorgio Vurro (Pizzo, 21.11.1956);
Giovanni Zuliani (Vibo Valentia, 1.4.1996).

Submission obligation:

Maria Carmela Ciconte (Sorianello, 31.12.19699);
Giulio Solano (Vibo Valentia 24.11.1999);
Santo Vincenzo Varone (Turin, 26.3.1990).

Salvatore Morelli's nickname is "Turi the American" , so it seems he has ties to Northern America.

'Ndrangheta, 13 killed in 5 years in the Sibaritide. Between "bad meat" and innocent victims

SEP 10, 2023
From the boss Leonardo Portoraro eliminated in 2018 to the wingman Carmine Morello, passing through all the others. No mercy for women and children

https://www.altrepagine.it/index.ph...-anni-tra-malacarne-e-vittime-innocenti/

The boss Luigi Mancuso and the wiretap on Gratteri: «Let's all be good, otherwise Nicola will enjoy it..."
The environmental capture, which occurred during a wedding, demonstrates how the 'Ndrangheta increasingly fears the repressive action of the Catanzaro DDA.

In the very vast request for a precautionary measure of the "Maestrale-Carthago" operation , a very interesting interception emerges which, according to the Catanzaro DDA, outlines the "'Ndrangheta policy of Luigi Mancuso", that is, the super boss of the 'Ndrangheta of Vibo, better identified as the "Supreme" .This is an environmental capture of 5 October 2019, during a wedding, when Francesco Barbieri, Francesco Bonavena and Luigi Mancuso discussed at first and then "il Supremo", Nicola Fusca, Francesco Barbieri, Antonino Barbieri and Giuseppe Raguseo. The main topic discussed by those present is that of maintaining "good neighborly" relations with other clans, without having to use violence, and therefore weapons .This is to remove the spotlight from the judiciary, in this case from the prosecutor's office coordinated by the chief prosecutor of Catanzaro Nicola Gratteri .

The action of the Gerace magistrate, who about two months after this interception will launch the maxi anti-mafia operation "Rinascita Scott", is greatly feared by the subjects in question .A sentiment also extended to other exponents of mafia-style organized crime who believe that things have changed from 2016 to today.A more effective contrast therefore to the 'Ndrangheta and to all those worlds - from politics to public administration - which facilitate its power over the territory.

Investigators claim that Barbieri hinted to boss Luigi Mancuso" and to the other participants to agree with the provisions of his hierarchical superior, reporting that, if the right precautions were not taken and the right clarifications were not made, they would have done the"game"»of the DDA of Catanzaro. « This last comment - we read in the investigation papers - is fully shared by Mancuso who adds that, if the disagreements that arose from time to time between the different 'Ndrangheta structures were not resolved internally and peacefully, there would be room for maneuver to the aforementioned investigative team ».

« Behave yourself and be good! Huh!? Let's all be good!" - says Luigi Mancuso to Francesco Barbieri, highlighting how there was no need to create a climate of hatred in the large Vibo mafia association, among the most organized and deep-rooted in Italy and in other parts of the world .Luigi Mancuso, moreover, as a "superfine mind", who sees him at the crest of the criminal wave for over 40 years, underlines during the meeting that the disagreements between associates« they could give Nicola pleasure », a clear reference to the investigative activity of the Catanzaro DDA, in the person of the chief prosecutor Nicola Gratteri.

For investigators,« the undisputed authority of Luigi Mancuso, head of the provincial 'ndrangheta, is expressed, among other things, through a possible direct intervention by Mancuso in resolving disputes between the various locals and 'ndrine ».And what are the guidelines dictated by the "Supreme"?"Friendship" between the "Locals" and between the "Locals" and the top; respect for the territorial competences of the "'ndrangheta locals" in the management of illicit activities; the dialogue of the "Local" employees with the top management, in order to avoid conflicts that could attract the attention of the investigators; the resolution of disputes possibly resorting to arbitration by Luigi Mancuso, almost as if the boss presided over the "'ndrangheta court", and finally the centrality of social accreditation, which translates into a phrase intercepted between the boss Mancuso and the others his followers. « The interesting thing is, you don't have to... let's not abuse people... ...omissis... ...because we have to make them love us, because... ...omissis... …once upon a time they paid money and magic! Now they pay money not to see us! ».

They tried to kill Fabio Manolo Cosoleto (52) was injured in an ambush. The man was aboard his car in the company of his wife and young son when he was apparently hit by some gunshots from two people on a motorbike.
The victim of the ambush is originally from Gioia Tauro and has a criminal record, and was slightly injured in the throat and was transported to hospital in Polistena, but his life was not in danger, fortunately his wife and son remained unharmed.
Police and Carabinieri investigations are underway.

Cosoleto was in 2018 involved in a massive fraud on creditors and tax authorities for 50 million euros, 24 arrests. Eight companies and assets worth 36 million euros were seized. He was also arrested one time for carrying a gun. The shadow of the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta hovers over all this, which according to investigators would have been very close to some of the disputed operations.
He's originally from Vibo Valentia, resident in Gioia Tauro, 'entrepreneur' LOL,

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...e-reveal-arrest-suspect-mafia-raids.html

Italian mother, 42, who vanished seven years ago was 'murdered and her body fed to pigs by 'Ndrangheta mobster', police reveal, as they arrest suspect in mafia raids

The Colombian cartels are coming to Europe
12 September 2023, 10:23am

Cocaine base paste, Colombia (photo: Getty)

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In May this year 87,000 asylum applications were lodged with the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA). This was a 24 per cent increase on the number of claims made in May 2022.

Syrians, Afghans, Ivorians and Guineans were heavily represented among those making claims, but there was also a remarkable number of South Americans. Over 7,000 Venezuelans asylum seekers arrived in Europe this May, along with 2,500 Peruvians and 6,900 Colombians. In the case of Colombians, this is a 90 per cent increase on 2022. Most filed their asylum claims in Spain, and according to the EUAA, nearly all were first-time applicants.

Colombia has been beset by conflict for decades, but in newly-elected left-wing president Gustavo Petro they have a leader working hard to restore peace and prosperity. According to the CIA Factbook, the country ‘maintains relatively strong and independent democratic institutions characterised by peaceful, transparent elections and the protection of civil liberties.’

During the years of guerrilla war with groups such as FARC, hundreds of thousands of Colombians fled to Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama. A further 280,000 were granted permanent residency in the USA between 2002 and 2012. But why are Colombians now claiming asylum in Europe in significant numbers?

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that there has been significant upturn in South American asylum seekers at the same time that Colombian and Mexican drug cartels are expanding their business operations in Europe.

In July I attended a dinner in Catania where on my right was a high-ranking member of the Sicilian Carabinieri. It was an enlightening evening; the Sicilian mafia is still around, my neighbour explained, but the real power today is in southern Italy.

According to Vanda Felbab-Brown, of the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, the Mexicans and the Colombians have ‘developed wholesale supply relationships with Italian mafia groups, especially the Calabria-originating Ndrangheta whose workforce is believed to have some 30,000 and whose budget is estimated in the tens of billions annually.’

Cocaine production in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia has boomed in the last decade, and so has its importation into Europe. A report in 2021 by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime said that for the South American cartels it makes better business sense to traffic their produce to Europe and not the USA because ‘prices are significantly higher and the risks of interdiction, extradition and seizure of assets significantly lower.’ A kilogram of cocaine fetches $60,000 in western Europe, double what it is worth in the States.

Furthermore, the cartels can use Europe as a base from which to export the cocaine into the Middle East and Asia, both burgeoning markets.

The challenge for the cartels is how to get the drugs into Europe. In 2019 the Italian police pulled off a major coup when they infiltrated a plot by the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel to establish a trafficking base in Catania. The Sicilian city was chosen because of its port and its small international airport.

It was a superb law enforcement operation – codenamed Halcon – which not only netted some major criminals but also unearthed crucial intelligence about how the South Americans operate. One such disclosure concerned the Venezuelan military, which allegedly had turned a blind eye to dozens of light aircraft that each week trafficked thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico

Drugs are still being smuggled into Europe by air, as well as on container ships into ports such as Le Havre, Antwerp and Rotterdam. My dining companion in the Sicilian Carabinieri said that significant quantities also arrive on remote stretches of the Calabrian coastline.

The two most industrious cartels are Mexican, Sinaloa and CJNG (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación), and increasingly they are smuggling in unfinished produce, coca base, and then processing it into cocaine here. According to Vanda Felbab-Brown, this is because ‘by using European processing facilities… Mexican and Colombian cooks, partnering up with European chemists, have been able to produce some of the highest potency cocaine.’

It’s not just cooks who are coming to Europe from Colombia. So are prostitutes and pimps. Police in Spain and France have in recent years dismantled several networks in which women are brought to Europe to work in the sex industry.

Most alarming are the sicarios (hitmen) who come to kill for their Mexican masters. It is, speculated Felbab-Brown in 2022, only a matter of time before Europe begins to experience a surge in drug-related violence.

It’s happening in France. On Monday evening Marseille experienced its forty-second drug war killing of the year, ten more than the number slain in the whole of 2022.

In July the French authorities seized 242 kilos of cocaine in a coordinated operation in Marseille and the Oise, north of Paris. Those arrested were French and Colombians, who according to a police source were ‘implicated in the importation of significant quantities of cocaine from South America via French Guiana’.

There are two other likely ramifications of the South Americans move into Europe; first, they will soon start producing fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, which have wreaked such havoc in the USA. Second, they will use their vast wealth to buy people of influence. That is already underway.

In the French Channel port of Le Havre, ten tonnes of cocaine from South America were seized in 2021 – a 164 per cent increase on the previous year. This was made possible by the help of French dockers, several of whom have been jailed for corruption, unable to resist the riches offered by the cartels.

In return for helping them move a container full of cocaine, the cartels pay a docker as much as €75,000. ‘Some dockers do it for the money, but most are threatened or pressured into it,’ claims lawyer Valerie Giard, who has acted for several indicted dockers. ‘The traffickers come up to them at the school gates or in a cafe and show them photos of their family,’ she explained. ‘They tell them that if they don’t do what they say, they’ll be trouble. Once they get them involved, they never get out.’

The same might be said of asylum seekers arriving in Europe. Once they are here, they never leave. Look at the Albanian mafia, who, as I wrote last year, began moving their heroin and prostitution businesses west at the start of this century. Business really began to boom in 2010 when the EU granted visa-free travel to Albanian citizens. Within a few years thousands of Albanians were seeking asylum in France, Germany and particularly Britain. There were 439 asylum claims in the UK from Albanians in 2011, which rose to 15,925 in 2022. Most claims have been successful. During this period the Albanian mafia has taken control of the UK’s cocaine market, working closely with the Colombian cartels. Only the stupendously gullible believe the two events aren’t linked.

Likewise, one would have to be breathtakingly naïve to imagine that every one of the thousands of South Americans lodging asylum applications in the EU is law-abiding.

Last year Dan O’Mahoney, Clandestine Channel Threat Commander, warned the Home Affairs Select Committee that while some Albanian asylum seekers were legitimate, others were ‘gaming the system’ to get into Britain. ‘Whatever sort of criminality you can think of – the most serious sort – there are Albanian criminal gangs dominating in those markets, whether it is drug smuggling, human trafficking, guns or prostitution,’ said O’Mahoney.

Now it is South Americans who are gaming the system and the consequences are likely to be just as grim.

WRITTEN BY
Gavin Mortimer
Gavin Mortimer is a British author who has lived in Paris for 12 years. He writes about French politics, terrorism and sport.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-colombian-cartels-are-coming-to-europe/

DIA: in 2022 count 25 'ndrangheta clubs in Lombardy, also present in Legnano and Rho
According to the complex balance sheet recently published by Dia, Legnano is among the cities in the province of Milan under the attention of these criminal organizations mostly linked to the Calabrians

Mafia organizations are less violent and more silent so as not to attract attention and can infiltrate the economic fabric by also implementing corrupt practices. At the same time they are more multi-ethnic depending on the criminal activities to be carried out in an attractive territory such as Lombardy where 25 'ndrangheta premises are apparently operational . And Legnano is among the cities in the province of Milan that has received the attention of these criminal groups mostly linked to the Calabrians.This is what emerged from the report on the activity carried out and the results achieved by the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate in the second half of 2022. A document published today, Thursday 14 September, useful for outlining a profile of organized crime spread throughout Lombardy.

In the provinces of the Court of Appeal district of Milan and Brescia, the presence of groups attributable to Calabrian organized crime has been confirmed by numerous operations recorded from 2005 until 31 December 2022. «The consistency of many groups has been weakened or canceled from the counteraction, but - as stated in the report - their particular dynamism makes them particularly elusive to the incessant attempts at downsizing on an operational level. This is due to the continuous phases of regeneration and structural renewal, not always deducible from investigative/judicial evidence, of the inclusion of new associates or from the interaction with other groups, even of different origins or geographical origins". In particular, there are 25 premises present in the Region in connection with the Reggio mother company, among these there are the premises in Milan, Bollate, Bresso, Cormano, Corsico-Buccinasco, Pioltello, Rho, Solaro and precisely Legnano.

White collar mafias
According to Dia, mafias increasingly prefer to direct their attention to business-entrepreneurial areas,taking advantage of the availability of huge capital accumulated through traditional illicit activities. These are "modi operandi" where we try both to strengthen the associative bonds through the pursuit of profit and the search for consensus by taking advantage of the strong economic suffering that characterizes some areas, and to keep up with the most advanced investment strategies, managing to also seize the opportunities offered by national and community public funds (Recovery Fund and PNRR). From the analysis, a characteristic of organized crime emerges: «resilience, as well as the ability to quickly grasp the technological transformations and economic-financial phenomena on a global scale, exploiting every profit opportunity and realizing a notable speculative expansion.

Albanian criminal groups
Albanian organizations have long integrated with local crime, becoming, not only in Italy, one of the most complex and articulated expressions in the crime scene, as partners and providers of criminal services for other groups, with a reputation for notable reliability. , especially for drug trafficking. Furthermore, the large availability of money allows the Albanian mafias to have access to sophisticated technological and IT equipment to evade enforcement by the police and judicial authorities, making the investigative effort always difficult and demanding.

DEAD WITHOUT PEACE
The "mafia" in the cemetery, 70 suspects and 16 arrests in Cittanova and Milan
Carabinieri operation between the north and Reggio Calabria. According to investigations by the Palmi prosecutor's office, the organization had had control of the graves for years: it buried and exhumed the dead at will according to a "management parallel to that of the Municipality"

“Parallel management of the municipal cemetery”. Even to bury the dead it was necessary to have a special pass in Cittanova , according to the investigations by the Carabinieri of Gioia Tauro, coordinated by the Palmi prosecutor's office.

In fact, a vast operation is underway, which affects the provinces of Milan and Reggio Calabria, in which the military has carried out an order from the investigating judge against 16 suspects. Those considered to be at the top of the association are 4 people including the former caretaker of the cemetery, now retired , and three local entrepreneurs , administrators of two funeral homes . A total of 70 names ended up in the register of suspects.

According to what was claimed by the investigators, the four, all subjected to precautionary custody in prison, would have created a "parallel management" system to that of the local authority . And for years they would have carried out unauthorized exhumations, destroying or moving the bodies of the deceased to other niches, to make room for new burials.

(The details of the operation will be made known in a press conference that the Public Prosecutor of Palmi, Dr. Emanuele Crescenti, will hold at the Provincial Command of Reggio Calabria at 10.30).

“Over 460 bodies were suppressed or destroyed by the suspects”, says the commander of the Operational Department of the Carabinieri of Gioia Tauro.

https://www.rainews.it/tgr/calabria...05a434a-4dc4-4a89-838b-bb515669b973.html

'Ndrangheta: Antonio Accorinti, son of a boss, repents
The father is the leader of the gang of the same name in Briatico, in the Vibo area
LAMEZIA TERME , 15 September 2023, 6.11pm

ANSA editorial team

Antonio Accorinti, 43 years old, alleged exponent of the Briatico gang of the same name, in the Vibonese area, and son of Nino, leader of the same criminal group, has repented by joining the ranks of justice collaborators.
Accorinti's collaboration was learned today during the hearing of the "Imponimento" trial which is taking place in the bunker courtroom in Lamezia Terme.

This was made known by Catanzaro DDA magistrate Antonio De Bernardo, who represents the public prosecution in the trial.

The prosecutor filed the documents relating to the first statements as a collaborator of Antonio Accorinti together with those of Onofrio Barbieri, former exponent of the Bonavota di Sant'Onofrio gang, who also recently became a collaborator of justice.
The new repentant has a very respectable criminal "curriculum". According to what emerged from the DDA investigations, Accorinti occupied a top position in the gang headed by his father. He was also sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment, with a first degree sentence, in the trial called "Costa Clean" and was involved in the "Olimpo" investigation. In both cases the crime he was accused of was mafia-type criminal association.
With Antonio Accorinti's repentance, the number of mafia members from the Vibo area who have become collaborators with justice over the last year rises to five.